Central Street's Trick or Treat and Small Business Saturday Both Land on Ryan Field Game Days

On Friday night, purple-clad fans streamed down the sidewalks toward the new Ryan Field, and Frank Sturges watched them from his porch. "We're leaning in today and cooking out like it's a game day for us too," the 7th Ward resident told The Daily Northwestern. "We got the grill going."

The opener was a big production. The stadium debuted on October 2, one hundred years to the day after the old stadium opened, before a sold-out crowd of 35,000 and a national TV audience. The show included an F-16 flyover, pyrotechnics, banner planes and a police escort for Penn State's buses. Friday nights get the flyovers, but the dates that matter more on Central Street are later this fall. The Central Street business district has scheduled its Trick or Treat for October 24, the same Saturday Northwestern hosts Rutgers. It has scheduled Small Business Saturday for November 28, the same day as the Illinois game.

On both of those days, the corridor will host the neighborhood's own events under game-day rules built for a stadium crowd. The business district's events page doesn't present either date as a football tie-in. They are simply the same days.

The fall calendar, with both schedules on it

The stadium's 35,000 seats are about 12,000 fewer than the old Ryan Field held. It is the smallest stadium in the Big Ten. Even so, it shares a street with a retail district its own director calls "neighborhoody." Here is how the rest of the fall lines up as of October 6.

The Holiday Stroll on November 14 is the one big Central Street Saturday this fall with no game scheduled the same day. The Evanston Township High School matchup against longtime rival New Trier on October 16 brings a different crowd to the same field.

What the rules look like on a shared Saturday

The city's game-day rules have layers. Families heading to Trick or Treat and shoppers coming for Small Business Saturday run into all of them.

1. Tow zones. Street parking is banned on both sides of Central Street between Poplar and Girard avenues, and on both sides of Isabella and Lincoln streets between Poplar and Ridge. The ban starts five hours before kickoff and ends when "event traffic clears," roughly an hour after the game. Cars parked there are towed. Those blocks stay open for shuttle buses and parking lot access.
2. The permit-only zone. From two hours before each game until one hour after, street parking across the rest of the neighborhood is limited to residents with valid permits. The zone covers the streets bounded by the North Shore Channel to the south and east, Isabella Street to the north and the Metra tracks to the west. Violations carry a $125 fine. The city applies these District 6 restrictions to events expected to draw more than 4,000 people.
3. Guest passes. Residents inside a residential parking district can buy one-day passes for visitors' cars. They need to show proof of residence every time. Passes are sold at the City Collector's office at Lorraine H. Morton City Hall, 909 Davis Street, and through the city's Visitor Pass Online Order Form. A guest pass covers the permit zone. It does not cover the tow-zone blocks of Central, Isabella and Lincoln.

These rules come from the plans approved before the opener. Restriction hours for Rutgers, Iowa and Illinois are still listed as TBA on the city's District 6 page. Without a kickoff time, nobody can yet say which stretch of October 24 the tow window covers.

Ball State on Saturday morning is the first daytime test

Opening night happened on a Friday after dark. The Ball State game on October 10 kicks off at 11:30 a.m., which puts the permit-only window from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It is the first time game-day rules will cover a weekend daytime stretch on Central Street. City Manager Luke Stowe said the October 14 advisory review would benefit from having both a day game and a night game to look at.

Lara Hamann, one of the advisory council's two residents appointed by Northwestern, expects some of the opener's irritants to disappear. Those include the alarm testing that ran every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. starting September 28. She told the RoundTable:

"The things that people were complaining about [for the first game] are not going to appear, they're not going to exist for the next game. So I think the next game will be the biggest test of the neighborhood reaction."

Neighbors described opening week differently. Sturges said he appreciated the city's advance notice and hoped for more communication. Mayor Daniel Biss called the stadium "an incredible financial investment in Evanston" that is "not without impact." He said the city's job is to hold Northwestern to minimizing those effects. After the game, Stowe said operations "went very well" and that every part of the night would be evaluated before the next home games.

Getting in and out of the corridor

Transit appeared to work fairly well on opening night. Shuttles ran in a loop to Northwestern's campus and downtown Evanston, and extra Purple Line and Metra UP-North trains moved large groups out. The bike valet saw less use. An employee reported 80 of the advertised 500 spots filled.

For the opener, the CTA said Metra would hold an extra inbound train to Ogilvie and an extra outbound train to Waukegan at the Central Street station. Both left about 30 minutes after the final whistle, and Metra plans extra service after the remaining home games. Pace Route 213 runs along Green Bay Road with a stop at Central Street, and CTA Route 201 serves both downtown Evanston and the stadium. The free-ride offers on Metra and the Purple Line were announced for the Penn State game. Details for later games may differ. For more on how the two rail lines compare day to day, see our Evanston commute breakdown.

Rideshare had the roughest night. Northwestern's plan sends Uber and Lyft pickups to the Haven Middle School parking lot at 2417 Prairie Avenue. On Friday, the Lyft app showed that restriction, but its directions pointed riders to Haven in general rather than the lot, and some fans ended up waiting along Green Bay Road. Uber appeared to take pickups as usual. During the third quarter, cars sat along Central Street offering rides despite the parking ban. Earlier plans had two more pickup zones, one on Lincoln Avenue by Chandler Park and one on Poplar Avenue beside the Central Street Metra station. Both were dropped after strong opposition from nearby residents. Families walking to Trick or Treat on October 24 may meet pickup traffic on those same blocks of Central and Green Bay.

Central Street's kitchens moved inside the gates

The overlap shows up in the food as well as on the streets. The stadium's "Evanston & North Shore Favorites" program opened with Soul and Smoke, Hecky's BBQ, Mustard's Last Stand, Bluestone, Double Clutch Brewing, The Fat Shallot, La Cocinita, Spice Restaurant and Wilmette's Pizza by Sal's, plus Frio Gelato and Hartigan's Ice Cream Shoppe. All game-day proceeds beyond operating costs go back to the restaurants. A spokesperson said an update on whether the lineup stays the same all season would come this week.

Mustard's Last Stand has sat beside the stadium for 57 years, and it served inside for the first time on Friday. "We've been next door for 57 years, so it's an honor to be in here," said Michelle Starkman, wife of co-owner Lonnie Starkman. Bluestone owner Patrick Fowler said new customers were asking where his restaurant is located. His grandfather played football on the same field. The stadium is fully cashless, with "reverse ATMs" that load cash onto a prepaid debit card, and alcohol sales end after the third quarter under an ordinance the City Council adopted the week of the opener.

On November 28, then, a shop-small day on Central Street will run while some of the same local kitchens are serving fans inside the stadium.

The corridor keeps changing after the season ends. Colectivo Coffee plans a roughly 2,500-square-foot café at 2945 Central St. by early 2027, with seating for 48 inside and about 80 outdoors. It will occupy the former Lincolnwood Service building, a 1938 Pure Oil station and Evanston landmark. The stadium's concerts are also on the way. Zoning allows up to six a year, expected to start in spring or summer 2027. Amplified sound must end by 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and by 10:15 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The next fixed date is October 14, when the advisory council reviews both opening games. Kickoff times for Rutgers, Iowa and Illinois, along with their restriction hours, will appear on the city's District 6 page once they are set.

If you're wondering how game-day patterns might affect a home on the blocks between the Metra tracks and the channel, Cadence Realty is following the Ryan Field rollout closely. Read more on our Evanston neighborhood page, or schedule a concierge consultation to talk through your specific street.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.